Japanese ear picking with Samurai swords and black Q-Tips?

Ear picking with sword sounds scary to me but as I’ve said before, Japanese are very found of their long tradition of ear picking with mimikaki (耳かき). Heiwa Medic Company of Japan has tapped into that love of ear mining by turning their Q-Tips black. These Life(tm) black cotton swabs have scored great emotional favor with Japanese consumers by providing better functionality…and voila, a runaway hit product.

Life(tm) black cotton swabs
The first in the industry, our black ear swabs lets you clearly see the fruits of your labor. Using 100% the black cotton tips have two different shapes for better cleaning.

According to Heiwa Medic’s press release: What attracted longtime average white cotton swab buyers to switch to this unusual product was the enhanced feeling of cleanliness that came from simply being able to see clearly the amount of extracted ear wax on the black cotton tips as opposed to on the white counterparts. Also, variations such as spiral tips make it even easier to clean out ear wax.” A minor catch is that you might be shy if anyone else sees what you’ve collected.

I sort of laughed when I read our kind sponsor, J-List.com describe these Darth Vader Q-Tips as: “Black Spiral Cotton Swabs that are dynamite for cleaning your ears.” Somehow the words, “dynamite” and “ear cleaning” don’t belong together.
But hey, if the black and spiral shape works better, you ought to order ‘em now!